Trump-May Press Conference Shows How Journalism Should Be Done

Donald Trump and Theresa May held a joint press conference after a White House meeting today. Although the big news out of the meeting was that Trump and May reiterated their commitment to NATO, a full reading of the transcript gives a slightly more nuanced interpretation. There was never any verbal commitment made to NATO by Trump at this press conference. It was only mentioned by Theresa May in far from definitive terms. Said May, "[W]e are united in our recognition of NATO as the bulwark of our collective defense, and today we've reaffirmed our unshakable commitment to this alliance. Mr. President, I think you said, you confirmed that you're 100 percent behind NATO". Since we are dealing with Donald Trump, "thinking he said" something is not a reliable indicator of what he will actually do. In fact, "thinking he said" something usually means he said nothing at all.

As far as the rest of the press conference went, both Trump and May could not say the words "special" and "relationship" often enough. In opening statements that each probably lasted around two minutes, they mentioned those words or some variant a total of 13 times. Being generous, that comes to about one mention in less than every half minute. This was diplomacy at its most vapid and merely gave Trump to stand with another world leader and Theresa May the chance to signal to her Conservative base back home that US is interested in moving ahead with a trade pact to help offset the negative effects of Brexit. Trump's advisors somehow think this will give the UK an upper hand in their negotiations with the EU and will provide a roadmap for other EU members to leave the EU and form a trade pact with the US. Instead, it will probably provoke the Europeans into being even harsher with May and the Brits.

In fact the most interesting part of the press conference was to see how clearly the Brits act like real journalists while their US counterparts are practicing stenography. Let's just look at the four questions asked today, two by UK reporters and two from Americans. Steve Holland from Reuters opened up with a nice open-ended question about Russia that allowed Trump and May to just take the ball and spin it. His question, "You're going to be speaking tomorrow with the Russian president. What message would you like to convey to him? How close are you to lifting some of the sanctions imposed on Russia over its Ukraine incursion? What would you expect in return?And Prime Minister May, do you foresee any changes in British attitudes towards sanctions on Russia?" Trump gave a non-answer and May at least reiterated the UK's belief that sanctions should continue. And here is another softball from John Roberts at Fox, "It's my understanding, Mr. President, that you had an hour-long phone call this morning with President Enrique Pena Nieto of Mexico. Could we get an update on where the relationship is? Further to that, what do you say to your critics who claim that you have already soured a relationship with a very important U.S. ally? And, Madam Prime Minister, if I may ask you as well, are you concerned about the state of relations between the United States and Mexico?" Trump took the opportunity to spout his usual blather, that we will have a great relationship with Mexico but they "beat us to a pulp" and "made us look foolish" in trade deals. May's answer was classic diplomatese that said a lot without really saying it, "As the President himself has said, the relationship of the United States with Mexico is a matter for the United States and Mexico".

Now let's look at the two question from the UK reporters, one from the BBC and the other I've not been able to identity. Here is the BBC question, "Prime Minister, you've talked about where you agree, but you have also said you would be frank where you disagreed with the president. Can you tell us where in our talks you did disagree? And do you think that the president listened to what you had to say?...Mr. President, you've said before that torture works. You've praised Russia. You've said you want to ban some Muslims for -- from coming to America. You've suggested there should be punishment for abortion. For many people in Britain, those sound like alarming beliefs. What do you say to our viewers at home who are worried about some of your views and worried about you becoming the leader of the free world?" Donald Trump's initial response to the question was, "This was your choice of a question?" The next question from UK reporter Tom ??? was "Mr. President, you said you'd help us with a Brexit trade deal. You've said -- you said you'd help us with Brexit trade deal, you said you'd stand by us with NATO, but how can the British prime minister believe you? Because you have been known in the past to change your position on things. And also (inaudible) it's a question to both of you. People are fascinated to know how you're going to get along with each other, you're so different; the hard-working daughter (inaudible), the brash TV extrovert. Have you found anything in common personally yet?" The first part of the question basically calls Trump a liar and asks why anyone should believe him. The second, while admittedly kind of a softball, also has a nice dig in there insinuating Trump is not a hard worker. Both of these questions reflect how real journalism is meant to be done.